*Isla*
Maddox was gone when I opened my eyes. I shouldn’t have been surprised. He told me last night that he had a lot to do, but I insisted he stay with me, and he did.
I had fallen asleep on him in the bathtub, so he probably didn’t have much of a choice.
Now, I am sitting at the dining table eating my breakfast while Poppy fake dusts because she doesn’t need to keep dusting.
“I just feel really bad for that baby,” she is saying. I take a piece of toast and break it apart before putting a small piece in my mouth.
I haven’t gone to check on Maddy yet, but I will. Not because I want to keep her. I understand now that Maddox is right. It’s not a good idea. I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that I’m expected to do everything Sydney just did yesterday soon enough–except for the dying part. That I’d like to avoid.
“I feel bad for her, too,” I manage between bites.
“I mean, in this day and age, now does that happen?” Piper continues. And I don’t have an answer for her. “Was Mystica really trying?”
“Yes.” That’s all I can say in response to that question because I have always had such amazing faith in Mystica, but she was struggling yesterday, and I have to think it’s just because the situation was so dire.
“Well, I think it’s terrible. I heard that the bed was so bloody, they had to take the mattress out last night and burn it,” Poppy says as she runs her duster over some of the trinkets on the dresser.
“That’s not true.” I don’t know why I care what the servants are gossiping about, but I know that’s not true. “We put a shower curtain down on the bed to protect the mattress.”
“Maybe it soaked through,” Poppy adds with a shrug.
I know that it’s not possible, but I don’t want to argue with her. She’s my friend, after all, and it’s not worth either one of us getting upset over. The bottom line is that Sydney died, her baby needs new parents, and they won’t be me.
No longer pretending to work, Poppy pulls out the chair across from me and sits down, crossing her legs, and balances the duster on her knee. “It’s a shame.” She pulls in a deep breath and lets it out before she adds, “I never really liked Sydney, but I didn’t want her to die. Now, Zabrina, on the other hand.” She rolls her eyes.
My stomach constricts, and I’m glad I haven’t eaten any of the greasy bacon that still sits on one side of my plate. I’m not sure I would be able to stay here without running to throw up if I had.
The fact that Zabrina is back in the castle makes me super nervous. I know that Maddox will do everything possible to make sure she can’t escape this time, but I’m still worried. She’s gotten away before. I know that she’s not in the same shape she was in before, that she probably won’t be able to flirt her way past the guards, but that doesn’t mean she won’t find a way to get out of the dungeon and make her way up here to torture me.
I’m not the meek little girl I was when I first arrived here, and I know I would fight back, but if she caught me while I was sleeping or in the shower or something, or if she managed to drug me, well…. I’m a bit preoccupied with thinking of ways she might kill me.
“You could keep her.”
Poppy’s statement comes from nowhere. I have a glass of orange juice in my hand and am getting ready to take a drink when her words hit my ears. I don’t take a sip. Instead, I set it down. ”Zabrina?”
I know that she isn’t talking about my nemesis, but the way the conversation is flowing, it sounds like that’s what she might mean.
“No,” she says with a chuckle. “No one should keep her. She should die a miserable, painful death. Every one of us who’s had a hand in fixing what she’s done around should get a few blows in before she bleeds out.”
I wipe my hands off on my napkin and push my plate toward the middle of the table. I’m completely over this breakfast. I don’t want to get a blow in on Zabrina, but I do want her to be punished. As to whether or not she should die, I waiver on that. I’ve never been one to think that the Moon Goddess wants evil people to be killed for just anything, but Zabrina is a cold-blooded murderer, and to me, that makes her even more deserving of death than most.
“I meant the baby,” Poppy says, going back to the previous conversation. “I know you’re going to have your own one day, hopefully soon, but in the meantime. The baby needs parents, and Maddox needs an heir. Why not keep her as a backup in case you can’t get pregnant or you don’t have a boy?” She says it like it’s all just very simple, and I am immediately shaking my head.
“It doesn’t work that way,” I tell her. “Maddox doesn’t want someone else’s child as his heir, and besides, if we kept her, that would mean that Alpha Bryant got what he wanted, and someone who acts like him shouldn’t be rewarded, even after his death.”
Poppy doesn’t seem to be too swayed by my words as she reaches over and picks up a piece of the bacon I haven’t touched and eats it. Between bites, she says, “Well, I’m just saying, it wouldn’t hurt to keep her close by. Just in case.”
Fighting with Poppy never goes well for me, but I can’t help but say, “Thank you for your vote of confidence.”
Her eyebrows furrow as she finishes the first piece of bacon and picks up another one. “What do you mean?” she asks. “I didn’t say anything bad about you.”
“No, just that I might not be able to do my job,” I say, my voice still calm and even.
Hers is not as she declares, “I never said that! I’m just saying, she’s a baby, and he needs a baby! Geeze, Isla, lighten up.” She eats another piece of my breakfast.
The idea that she is my servant and I am her mistress fills my mind, but I bite back that declaration. She has no way of knowing how badly I wanted to keep the baby and how I was frightened into thinking I couldn’t and then I realized that I shouldn’t even want to.
I say nothing. There’s no point. Poppy isn’t going to admit that she said something wrong, and I am tired of arguing about it. I am tired of arguing, period, and I am tired of letting the idea that Maddy could be my daughter fill my head. The connection I feel to her is undeniable. But I won’t try to convince myself that I’m meant to be her mother.
“Besides…” Poppy continues wiping her hands of bacon grease on my napkin, “you could take her with you. You know, later.”
“Later?” I’m not sure what she’s getting at. Take her with me where?
Then… I put the pieces together. She doesn’t think I’ll be staying here.
Poppy–my best friend, or so I thought–thinks that Maddox will use me for a baby and then send me away. Without my child.
“You don’t think he loves me?” I can’t blame her if she doesn’t, I suppose. After all, I’m not completely sure whether or not I heard him say that he loves me the night before or not. I think, maybe, as I was dozing off in the bathtub, he said that he loves me, but it might’ve been my imagination.
And if I don’t know, how can I expect her to know?
Rather than directly answering my question, she draws in a deep breath, holds it, and lets it out before she says, “He’s the king. He’s said he will never take another queen, never take another Luna. He loved Rebecca, regardless of what happened to her. I don’t know how he feels, Isla, but I’m not sure it matters. He hasn’t changed his mind about his decision not to marry again in all of these years. Maybe he’ll keep you in the castle so that you can see your child. Maybe he’ll even continue to see you. But, is that what you want? Don’t you want to find your mate? You’ll be twenty-one soon, right? You need to be out there looking for him, and you won’t be able to do that if you stay here with Maddox, praying that he changes his mind.”
For once today, Poppy is making sense. As much as I don’t want to hear her words, she’s not wrong.
I do want to find my mate someday. I love Maddox, but he doesn’t want to marry again. He doesn’t want another Luna or queen, and while a second chance mate isn’t unheard of, most people who discover their second chance mate find that person in another who has lost their initial mate.
And I have never met my mate, so I can’t possibly require a second chance mate.
Am I content to stay here in the castle and continue to yearn for Maddox when he doesn’t have feelings for me? Am I content to just stay here on the promise of hope?
No, I already know the answer to that question. I could never stay in the castle indefinitely hoping that Maddox would sometime come around and realize he loves me.
But I can stay here for my child.
I will stay here for my child.
“I think I’d like to be alone for a little while,” I tell Poppy. I’d intended to go see baby Maddy after breakfast, and I still will go and see her at some point today. But for now, I just need some time to myself.
“All right,” she says. She stands and gathers up my plate and other breakfast items. As Poppy heads to the door, she pauses and turns to look at me. “I didn’t piss you off, did I?” She makes a face, like she’s afraid she’s overstepped.
She has overstepped, but I’m getting used to it, and sometimes, I admire Poppy’s ability to speak her mind. I shake my head. “No, we’re fine.”
She smiles at me briefly and then disappears out the door.
Poppy and I are fine. I have learned to forgive her sometimes hurtful comments, but it’s a lot harder to forget the harsh comments of someone else that play around in my mind.
My own.